Back to Australopithecus

Back to Australopithecus.

Are we going to be able to think in 20 years?

By Natalia Usselman

Back in primitive ages the information was going around in a very simple way. Your uncle would take you to the bush and show you how to get a banana from a tree. No aural explanations were involved and if they were, the words meant a particular object that is easy to imagine: "banana," "stick", and "if you don't do it right now you will get a hole in your head." As civilization progressed people invented words like "acceleration", "super ego" and "redemption", that mean not objects but abstract concepts. They are hard to picture, (no one has ever seen a super ego live), and represent a major headache for high school students. Physics, philosophy and religion are based on abstract concepts like that. Middle Ages education was concentrated on abstractions. Knowledge was sacred and accessible to chosen (monks in particular) and only chosen could understand it anyway. The books were the main carriers of information and not many people could read.

The closer we move to the contemporary era, the easier to digest the information becomes. Computer era made it chewed; we just have to swallow. Multimedia writers and designers cut it up in consumable portions, spice it up with interactive buttons and animation.

Reading on the computer is becoming more and difficult, not because of the flicker of cathode monitors but because the alternative to getting information by reading is available. The buttons, the pictures, the digested by someone else information makes us not want to read. Abstract words are disappearing, with them are abstract concepts, and with them is abstract thinking. Or, speaking correctly, not abstract thinking is disappearing but desire to think abstractly, think in words. We are spoiled by animated particles in animated nuclear reactor, animated chromosomes, bright and colourful numbers in interactive charts. And when we encounter written words like "matter" or "God" or "motivation", we get bored. We can not picture these concepts, they don't have cool sound effects and they are not clickable or movable. They exist on a different level, which is a bit more difficult to get to, and more and more people refuse to do it. The information exchange, especially with development of multimedia, is going back to Australopithecus level: look at that, listen to that, do that. Which is perfectly normal. After all, Hegel said that in course of history every thing turns to its opposite and after that turns to itself again (negation of negation thing).

It is just we might forget all together that there is a different way of thinking. Then we will miss out on future discoveries equal to discovery of earth spinning around the sun, or discovery of subconscious, or theory of relativity. Because those discoveries were made by people thinking in abstract concepts.

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Back to Australopithecus. Are we going to be able to think in 20 years? By Natalia Usselman Back in primitive ages the information was going around in a very simple way. Your uncle would take you to the bush and show you how to get a banana from a tree. No aural explanations were involved and if they were, the words meant a particular object that is easy to imagine: "banana," "stick", and "if you don't do it right now you will get a hole in your head." As civilization progressed people invented words like "acceleration", "super ego" and "redemption", that mean not objects but abstract concepts. They are hard to picture, (no one has ever seen a super ego live), and represent a major headache for high school students. Physics, philosophy and religion are based on abstract concepts like that. Middle Ages education was concentrated on abstractions. Knowledge was sacred and accessible to chosen (monks in particular) and only chosen could understand it anyway. The books were the main carriers of information and not many people could read. The closer we move to the contemporary era, the easier to digest the information becomes. Computer era made it chewed; we just have to swallow. Multimedia writers and designers cut it up in consumable portions, spice it up with interactive buttons and animation. Reading on the computer is becoming more and difficult, not because of the flicker of cathode monitors but because the alternative to getting information by reading is available. The buttons, the pictures, the digested by someone else information makes us not want to read. Abstract words are disappearing, with them are abstract concepts, and with them is abstract thinking. Or, speaking correctly, not abstract thinking is disappearing but desire to think abstractly, think in words. We are spoiled by animated particles in animated nuclear reactor, animated chromosomes, bright and colourful numbers in interactive charts. And when we encounter written words like "matter" or "God" or "motivation", we get bored. We can not picture these concepts, they don't have cool sound effects and they are not clickable or movable. They exist on a different level, which is a bit more difficult to get to, and more and more people refuse to do it. The information exchange, especially with development of multimedia, is going back to Australopithecus level: look at that, listen to that, do that. Which is perfectly normal. After all, Hegel said that in course of history every thing turns to its opposite and after that turns to itself again (negation of negation thing). It is just we might forget all together that there is a different way of thinking. Then we will miss out on future discoveries equal to discovery of earth spinning around the sun, or discovery of subconscious, or theory of relativity. Because those discoveries were made by people thinking in abstract concepts. Back to issues